CAMBODIA: Pol Pot Still Lives, Says Foreign Minister

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 1996 (IPS) - Pol Pot, the leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, is still alive despite reports that he died in June, Cambodian Foreign Minister Ung Huot told IPS.

“Pol Pot is still alive and well,” Ung Huot contended. “He may be a sick man, but he is still alive…and in command of the Khmer Rouge.”

Pol Pot, the 67-year-old Communist leader who ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, has been reported dead many times in recent years, most recently in June, when he was rumoured to have died from heart ailments. But Pol Pot, whose real name is Saloth Slar, continues to lead the violent Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Ung Huot said.

The foreign minister argued that the Khmer Rouge leader is still devoted to the radical agrarian and anti-intellectual policies he pursued during his four-year rule in Phnom Penh, including extreme antipathy to industrialisation and capitalist economics.

“He is trying to do the same trick he did between 1975 and 1979,’ Ung Huot said, referring to the period when Khmer Rouge forces are believed to have killed more than one million Cambodians. In areas under Khmer Rouge control, he argued, the rebels “still try to get rid of all cars, televisions and videos.”

The government’s contention that Pol Pot is still living comes months after most authorities conceded that the aged leader had finally succumbed to the illnesses that have beset him in recent years.

But some sources wonder whether the government is spreading rumours of his continued threat to justify its own recent amnesty of Pol Pot’s former chief aide and friend, Ieng Sary.

“They want to bring in Ieng Sary, and this is just an excuse to be able to do it,” one Cambodian U.S. resident, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, said.

A source close to Amnesty International contends that Pol Pot is alive, based on reports from Western Cambodia.

But even now, the uncertain fate of the shadowy leader and his troops — estimated to comprise some 5,000 to 10,000 forces in the western region bordering Thailand — continue to concern Phnom Penh.

Ung Huot argued that the amnesty recently granted to Ieng Sary by King Norodom Sihanouk is necessary to ensure that Pol Pot’s forces will be weakened and unable to threaten Cambodia further.

“Without 100 percent peace, the rehabilitation, the development and the prosperity of Cambodia cannot be achieved,” he said. He added that, with Ieng Sary’s defection from the Khmer Rouge, more than half of the rebels may also end their 17-year battle against Cambodia’s government, allowing for full peace in the country as early as 1997.

Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge government, was sentenced to death by the Vietnamese- backed government which ousted Pol Pot following Vietnam’s invasion in 1978.

Although that government, represented by the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), was defeated by the pro-Sihanouk royalist FUNCINPEC coalition in U.N.-supervised elections in 1993, the CPP continues to govern in coalition with FUNCINPEC and CPP leader Hun Sen is deputy prime minister.

Yet Ung Huot contended that the government was unified in its desire to offer amnesty to Ieng Sary. He noted that two-thirds of the deputies in the National Assembly have accepted King Sihanouk’s amnesty offer, which is still being negotiated with Ieng Sary.

Ieng Sary’s defection from the Khmer Rouge remains mysterious, with speculation rife about whether he had a falling-out with top Khmer Rouge commanders over allegations about his corruption. But Ung Huot maintained that the potential defector is sincere in his desire to lay down arms and make peace with Phnom Penh.

That may not be enough to convince human rights officials, who maintain that Ieng Sary’s role in the Khmer Rouge massacres must be investigated.

“Amnesty International recognises and appreciates the need for national reconciliation in Cambodia,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Pierre Sane wrote in an open letter to King Sihanouk this month. But the organisation said it would oppose any effort that would allow the Khmer Rouge leaders to have impunity for their alleged crimes.

“No government can relinquish its responsibilities to search for the truth and bring to justice those against whom there is sufficient evidence,” Sane wrote.